1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns hair curlers and more particularly processes and arrangements for heating hair curlers prior to their use.
2. It is often desirable to heat hair curlers prior to use for more effective hair curling. There have been provided many methods of heating hair curlers. The most common method is placing the hair curlers, which are generally shaped as hollow cylinders, over metal posts which posts are electrically heated to thereby heat the hair curler body. While this method is effective, it does require a number of minutes for the hair curlers to reach the desired temperature.
Other such arrangements have heretofore been developed. U.S. Pat. No. 4,499,355, discloses the use of induction heating of hair curlers, in which a steel cylinder having a high permeability to electricity is heated by a surrounding induction coil. A similiar arrangement is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,760,148.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,410,985, discloses the use of water as a heat storing substance with a quantity of water disposed within the curler and heated by a rod in contact with electrical heater elements on a heating plate.
It has also heretofore been known to use steam heating of foam core curlers as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,516,011.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,520,832, uses hollow cores of another wicking material such as black felt for releasing steam heated by a cylinder inserted over a conventional hair curler heating post.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,298,787, teaches steam heating of hair curlers in which the steam is generated by a heating element.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,453,554, uses foam cores on hair curlers which are arranged to absorb steam introduced at one end.
Each of these arrangements suffers from a disadvantage of requiring specialized, relative complex apparatus or are relatively slow in their heating action. It would be advantageous to provide a very rapid heating of hair curlers without requiring specialized, costly heating apparatus.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a process and arrangement for very rapidly heating hair curlers without necessitating the use of complex, specialized heating equipment, or necessitating complex, expensive hair curler construction.